


Brothers

by Thistlerose



Series: Midnight Conversations [13]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Angst, Brothers, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Marauders' Era, Underage Drinking
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-09
Updated: 2013-05-09
Packaged: 2017-12-10 21:46:07
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,216
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/790502
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Thistlerose/pseuds/Thistlerose
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Written in 2006.  The first two times Sirius Black got falling down drunk.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Brothers

The first time Sirius got drunk, he was thirteen. It was winter holidays; he'd been home for three days, and was bored. His parents had gone out for the evening – to some Ministry function – and Regulus was in his room, doing Merlin-knew-what. Revising, most likely, just as a good son should. Or wrapping Christmas presents, perhaps. Sirius couldn't be arsed to find out.

They'd been allies once, and Sirius had been hoping secretly that Regulus would also be Sorted into Gryffindor. No one – neither the brothers nor their parents nor anyone else, it seemed – had truly expected anything but Slytherin, though. At the Sorting, last September, Sirius had experienced a pang of disappointment. Then he'd shrugged and turned away from his brother, to his Gryffindor friends, and that had been that.

Regulus was insufferable. Prattling about what good families his friends came from. Parading around the house in silver and green. Informing Sirius that he was going to uphold the family honor. "Mother says."

"Sod Mother."

Sod all of them, Sirius thought, as he lay on his bed and stared at the ceiling. He missed his friends, would much rather have spent the holidays with any of them – even Peter – but his parents had insisted he come home. 

Well, he thought, he was physically present in Number 12 Grimmauld Place. Mentally…

He had the house-elf bring him a bottle of his father's best whisky. He knew he'd get in trouble, but he didn't care. The worst his parents could do, Sirius reckoned, was hex him. Nothing that couldn't be undone.

The house-elf whined about what his master and mistress would think, so Sirius ordered him to lock himself in one of the kitchen cabinets.

The whisky tasted awful, but he drank it anyway. Straight from the bottle, gulp after gulp until his mouth and throat were numb and his brain felt as if it had turned to gelatin. He flopped against his coverlet. The rest of the whisky spilled, and the dampness was irritating. He wanted to wriggle out of his skin, but all he could do was gaze at the ceiling, which seemed to be coming toward him.

The ceiling and his bed were like two giant hands. They would come together and squash him between them. 

_Oh good,_ he thought. _I didn't want to stay here anyway._

His parents found him some hours later, choking on vomit. 

"I begin to wonder," his father said when he was breathing again, a damp rag on his throbbing forehead, "if you really are ours, or if you were switched at birth with a filthy mudblood. You certainly don't act like a Black."

They left a bottle of sobering up potion on Sirius's bedside table, but after they'd gone, Regulus came in, and spilled it all out onto the floor.

"Oops," he said innocently, twiddling the empty bottle between his fingers.

"What a good little Slytherin," Sirius said. Or tried to say. Between the desert he seemed to have swallowed, and the rocks jostling in his skull, he couldn't tell what came out.

Regulus's mouth tightened. "I do believe that was a compliment. From you!"

Sirius did not speak. He opened his mouth, but it was only to exhale. With the breath came the desert, unfurling between him and his brother.

* * * *

The second time Sirius got drunk, he was sixteen. It was early spring at Hogwarts. Snape was in Dumbledore's office, telling the headmaster all about how Sirius had tried to kill him, or at least get him bitten by a werewolf. Remus was in the infirmary, bleeding. He didn't know where James and Peter were.

It was very late, so Sirius had expected the kitchens to be vacant. To his surprise, they were full of house-elves, scurrying about, doing this and that. Most seemed to be involved in scrubbing dishes, but a few were kneading dough – for tomorrow's breakfast, probably. The smell of yeast rose above everything else.

A few of the house-elves stopped when he came in, but most continued blithely about their tasks. "Gorby thinks…" "Hibbie has so much to do…" "Droga wonders if…" Sirius hadn't tell if they were gossiping or simply talking to themselves.

"I want firewhisky," Sirius announced.

There was some muttering among the house-elves closest to him.

Finally, one shuffled forward nervously and, head bowed, said in a voice so low that Sirius had to lean forward to hear it, "We is sorry, but there is no firewhisky here, sir."

"Well then, where is it?" said Sirius impatiently. "I've seen Dumbledore drink, and I know McGonagall—"

"Mister Sirius Black, we can't—"

They couldn't. Whether Dumbledore had foreseen such an event and ordered the lot of them to resist any student who came looking for alcohol, or this lot was stronger willed than old Kreacher, back at Grimmauld Place, Sirius was out of luck.

"Well, look," he said. He hadn't eaten since noon, but something in his stomach jounced. He closed his eyes briefly and saw the Whomping Willow, flailing against a bruised sky. The moon burst like a an egg yolk and splattered. Remus was being carried out on a magical stretcher; in the dimness, it looked like he was wearing rags, but really it was blood. Hatred in Snape's eyes. Pure, bone chilling hatred. And nothing in James's face. Nothing at all.

"Would Mister Black like a goblet of pumpkin juice…?" one of the house-elves asked timorously.

The thought nearly made him ill. "I want to get pissed," he said after swallowing a few times. "I want to get so sodding pissed that I don't remember my own name, all right? Whatever you can find, I don't care. Get me butterbeer."

"Butterbeer will not—"

"Get me a _lot_ of butterbeer," Sirius snapped.

It took twenty pints. Sirius did not count, but James, who finally found him, curled over a cauldron, clutching his distended belly, did – and told him later.

"You're an idiot, you know," James said. "You look like shite."

_I feel like shite,_ Sirius would have said, but he'd have vomited if he'd opened his mouth. He couldn't even raise his head.

"You're not expelled. In case you were wondering."

Sirius felt no relief.

"Snape's apoplectic. Remus is awake," James continued brutally. "He doesn't know what happened. You're going to tell him, when you're sober. If he hits you, I'll be glad. If he never speaks to you again, it's probably what you deserve."

The world lurched as James flopped to the flagstones beside Sirius and put his hand on his back. "It's going to be all right, though. I think." His hand began to move in slow, soothing circles. 

"I fucked up," Sirius croaked. His voice echoed weirdly in the cauldron.

"You did." The hand kept moving, became synchronized with Sirius's heaving breaths. The palm was warm through Sirius's sweat-soaked shirt.

"I—" There was so much to explain, and every thought was floundering in a sweet, sticky mess. There was probably more butterbeer in him than blood. He might even have been sweating the wretched stuff.

"It's going to be all right," James said again. "He'll forgive you."

And again, there was no relief.

"Give him time," James went on. "Meantime, I'm here, and I won't let you destroy yourself."

His words fell like raindrops.

04/29/06


End file.
